Fill ’er up or give ’er up
GAS PRICES: Facing rising costs at the pump, workers adjust or start thinking about new jobs.
November 5, 2005
By Jane Brisset
Jason Anker is looking for a job as a graphic designer close to his home in Duluth.
"The closer, the better," he said Thursday as he sat at a computer looking over job listings at the Minnesota Workforce Center in Duluth.
Gasoline prices are very much on his mind, as they are for many American workers. Even though prices for regular-grade gas in the Twin Ports have fallen from a high of more than $3 per gallon in September to about $2.25 this week, they’re still far higher than most are used to. (Diesel is still more than $3 per gallon this week, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.)
"I think it’s impacting everybody on a ridiculous level," Anker said.
In September and October, the employment firm Manpower Inc. conducted an online survey of 1,300 workers and more than two-thirds said gas price hikes are causing them to make adjustments, according to a company statement.
Thirty-five percent of the respondents said they’re looking for a job closer to home and 4.5 percent said they already had changed jobs. Others were using more public transportation, buying more fuel-efficient cars, shortening their driving routes, working from home or carpooling.
Manpower’s results might hold true -- or not -- in the Twin Ports, but employment and staffing agencies confirm the high level of concern.
"Transportation has been a big issue as far as getting people placed," said Cindy Potts, business development associate for Spherion Corp. in Duluth.
The staffing company has paid mileage to workers based on how far they have to travel, she said.
When a Minnesota Diversified Industries came looking for workers from Duluth last summer, Spherion officials said MDI might have trouble persuading people to make the commute because of high gas prices, Potts said.
So MDI chartered a bus that takes 52 to 57 night-shift workers the 86 miles from Duluth to Hibbing daily, Jan Blake, vice president of MDI’s human resources, said. MDI also charters a bus to take Twin Cities workers to Hibbing.
MDI’s production workers earn $8 an hour and up. The cost to MDI for the bus is $450 to $500 per shift, Blake said. MDI is making an effort to be creative in solving transportation costs for its workers, Blake said, and is working on other ideas such as carpooling.
Melanie Holmes, Manpower senior vice president, said employers need to take notice.
"Rising fuel costs are not just an operational business issue -- there is a human resources component that must be addressed too," she said in a statement.
Often, workers who live in outlying areas such as Brule or Two Harbors come to Manpower’s Duluth office and say they need a particular hourly wage to compensate for the gasoline costs. Others ask for placements close to home, said local Manpower spokeswoman Cheryl Christensen.
Staffing company Adecco also focuses on placing workers close to home. "Gas prices are definitely an issue," branch manager Wendy Thompson said.
Some workers, such as Dan Maher of Duluth, are willing to eat the cost of gas for the sake of a job. Maher recently accepted a job in Cloquet, 35 miles away from his home. He said he has made sure his car is in good working order to get top mileage.
He said he is also relieved that prices have dropped below $2.50 a gallon -- at least for the moment.
